At the U.N., hell freezes over

The United Nations has a long and sordid history of oxymoronic ethics. Just in the last few years:

North Korea has not only been a member of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, it also acted as the presiding nation for the U.N. body.

Syria served on the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child as its government was massacring civilians.

China, Cuba, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have served on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The Human Rights Council and its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, have been especially egregious in this regard. Yet even with this dismal record, the idea of Sudan serving on the Human Rights Commission was an assault on decency that even U.N. multilateralists couldn’t stomach.

The Sudanese government is responsible for the genocide in Darfur that the United Nations says has claimed 300,000 lives and created up to 2.5 million refugees. Sudan is guilty of well-documented war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the widespread use of sexual violence, gang rapes of women and girls, castration of men and boys, and mass murder of unarmed civilians.

Despite these crimes, Sudan was set to join the Human Rights Council in September as part of the regional machinery of committee assignments. A campaign led by human rights groups and Darfur activists such as Mia Farrow highlighted the embarrassment for the United Nations if this came to pass. That campaign, along with some quiet diplomacy on the part of the United States finally convinced the Sudan government to drop out of contention for the council seat this week.

Of course, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir denies his government has done anything wrong. There’s been no genocide. No war crimes.

You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that’s your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.